The participation of North Korean units on the Ukrainian front will not bring about major changes and they will probably suffer major losses, said Colonel Ants Kiviselg, commander of the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center. However, in the Donetsk region,
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Russian armed forces still hold the initiative and have forced the Ukrainian armed forces to gradually retreat, he added. "Unfortunately, there is nothing positive from the Ukrainian front line this week. The Russian Armed Forces still hold the initiative along the entire
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front line, which has forced the Ukrainian armed forces to gradually retreat," Kiviselg said at a Defense Ministry press conference. According to him, the average number of attacks per day remained at the same level as in previous weeks, i.e. about 167 attacks per day.
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"The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are capable of capturing most of the territories in the Donetsk region, primarily in the areas of Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, Vuhledar and Velyka Novosilka. Over the past week, the Russian Federation has occupied an additional 150 square
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kilometers of territory in these regions," Kiviselg said. "In addition, there are signs that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are preparing assault strikes in the area of the Zaporizhzhia region. It is likely that the already known to us 76th Airborne Division
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with a permanent deployment location in Pskov, Then the goal will be to capture new territories, as well as additional involvement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this region," Kiviselg said. "To summarize, it can be said that alarming events continue to occur in the
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Donetsk region and the Donetsk region. It is possible that the Russian Armed Forces will achieve a local breakthrough in the Pokrovsk, Kurakhovo or Vuhledar areas this year," he added. The Russian army has asked to extend the deadline for taking Kursk. Speaking about
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the arrival of North Korean soldiers at the front, Kiviselg said that according to Ukraine, 3,000 soldiers of the 11th Army Corps of the North Korean Armed Forces, including several hundred servicemen of the North Korean special forces, have arrived in the Kursk region.
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"These servicemen probably arrived on the territory of the Russian Federation in early October, where they underwent preliminary training in the Eastern Military District, which lasted approximately two to four weeks, after which they were sent to the Ukrainian front,"
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Kiviselg said. "In total, North Korea had to allow the Russian Federation to send from 10 to 12 thousand soldiers, including 500 officers and three generals. Probably, the arrival of North Korean soldiers to the Ukrainian front will take place in stages. "The arrival of
the
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next North Korean units on the Ukrainian front will take place in the coming weeks," Kiviselg said. Kiviselg said that, as a rule, North Korean soldiers are trained for combat in mountainous terrain, which means that the territory of Ukraine, its climate and geography are
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unknown to them. "And therefore, their training does not actually require combat in such areas. The training they receive in the Russian Federation is certainly not very good. "Therefore, we can expect that North Korean units will suffer heavy losses in Ukraine, and
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presumably even heavier losses than the armed forces have suffered in the Russian Federation so far," Kiviselg said. Despite this, Kiviselg believes that it is possible that North Korea will continue to send units to Russia and the Ukrainian front. "Despite this, the
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intelligence center's assessment is still that this sending of North Korean units to the Ukrainian front will not bring about major changes at the moment. But if this kind of additional sending of units to Russia, their training, and then their arrival at
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the Ukrainian front continues for a long time, then this could certainly bring about certain changes on the front line," Kiviselg said.
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Russia is facing severe budget problems and is looking for additional ways to replenish it. At a closed meeting with oligarchs held on March 26 after the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Vladimir Putin stated his intention to continue
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the war against Ukraine and proposed that large businesses make voluntary contributions to the budget. This was reported by The Bell citing sources familiar with the discussion. “They said, we will keep fighting,” one source summarized Putin’s remarks. “We will go to the borders
of Donbas,” another added. Some businessmen responded to the request immediately during the meeting. Suleiman Kerimov promised to contribute 100 billion rubles (~ $1.22 bln), according to The Bell’s sources. At least one other major businessman present at the meeting supported
The story of internet shutdowns in Russia is not an accident and not a “temporary measure.” It is a system that has been built for years and has now simply begun to operate at full capacity. What many people saw in Moscow in March 2026 - the inability to pay a bill,
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open a map, or simply send a message - has long been the norm for other regions; Moscow has simply been the last to enter this reality. The timeline is important here: back in 2019, the law on the “sovereign internet” was adopted - formally to protect against external threats,
but in reality to create an infrastructure for centralized traffic control, forcing operators to install equipment under state supervision. This was followed by annual drills in which the network was tested for isolation and autonomous operation - no longer theory, but
Exports of Russian oil through Baltic Sea ports - the main channel for shipping “black gold” abroad - have been completely halted, Reuters reports citing industry sources familiar with the situation. According to them, due to a drone attack on the Leningrad region, which 🧵
became the largest since the start of the war and involved at least 60 UAVs, both Baltic ports - Primorsk and Ust-Luga - have stopped operations, and together they handle up to half of all oil exported from Russia. On the evening of March 22, Leningrad region governor
Alexander Drozdenko reported a drone attack on Primorsk, through which about 1 million barrels per day are exported. According to him, several fuel storage tanks caught fire in the port. Reuters sources also report that shipments at the port of Ust-Luga, through which oil
Vladimir Putin has stopped appearing at public events in the Kremlin after details emerged about a US and Israeli operation to eliminate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As previously reported by Financial Times, before the strike Israeli intelligence tracked
Khamenei’s movements using hacked surveillance cameras. According to calculations by the outlet “Agentstvo,” the last time Putin held a public event in the Kremlin was on March 9 - a meeting on the situation in the global oil and gas market. After that, according to the
presidential press service, he met several times with regional governors, the Minister of Education, and the head of Sberbank, and also participated in Security Council meetings via video link. However, as “Agentstvo” notes, such meetings are often recorded in advance,
The Estonian initiative currently being discussed in the EU to ban former Russian army combatants from entering the Schengen area should become a model for others. And here is why. The issue is not only that they pose a threat to society through the risk of committing crimes -
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these individuals also pose a threat to state integrity. At present, citizens from more than 120 countries and unrecognized territories are fighting on Russia’s side. The largest numbers of mercenaries come from countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Nepal
Armenia, Moldova, Georgia, China, India, Egypt, as well as numerous African countries. These individuals are trained fighters who have undergone military preparation in an army where nearly 200,000 personnel are criminals recruited from penal colonies, pre-trial detention centers
Russia’s war around Iran may provide only a temporary reprieve through higher oil prices but it cannot fix its deep economic problems - for higher oil revenues to meaningfully support the budget, prices would have to remain extremely high almost all year, which is unlikely
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given global pressures to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. On this backdrop the Russian budget has already entered a crisis phase - the deficit for the first two months was about 3.5 trillion rubles against an annual plan of 3.8 trillion rubles, meaning almost the entire planned
deficit accumulated in January–February, and much of the current spending now goes to servicing past obligations and debt rather than development. Additional confirmation of systemic crisis came unexpectedly from Vladimir Solovyov - in a broadcast seen in the Russian Far East